Conference to explore future of community, rural landscapes and wildlands﻿

Pictured is Livingston, one of many communities throughout the Greater Yellowstone that continue to experience pressures from growth and a changing climate. This will be the topic of the June conference “Sustaining the New West: Bold Visions – Inspiring Actions.” PHOTO BY JOHN ZUMPANO

This June,
Bozeman nonprofit Future West will host a unique regional conference that
explores the future of the American West.

“Growth and
change are inevitable,” said Future West Director Dennis Glick. “They can
happen by design, or by default. It’s time that we recognize this reality and
begin to identify our vision for the future and the actions needed to make it a
reality.”

Conservationists,
elected officials, rural landowners, business leaders, land managers,
developers and many others will gather for a daylong exploration of the
potential future of our towns, working landscapes and wildlands. The
conference, which is called “Sustaining the New West: Bold Visions – Inspiring
Actions,” will take place June 5 at Bozeman’s Emerson Center for the Arts and
Culture.

The event
will put a spotlight on growth trends in the Northern Rockies and offer
alternative visions for how we develop and conserve this region. The conference
will also highlight examples from around the West of successful efforts to plan
for and achieve sustainable conservation and development on a regional scale.

The speaker
lineup includes founding member of the Blackfoot Challenge, rancher Denny
Iverson; Lain Leoniak, former Bozeman Water Conservation Specialist and current
Assistant Attorney General for Colorado; renowned conservation biologist Dr.
David Theobald; Mayor of Canmore, Alberta, John Borrowman; Teton County, Idaho,
Commissioner Cindy Riegel; Devin Middlebrook from the Lake Tahoe Regional
Planning Agency; Dr. Aerin Jacobs from the Yellowstone to Yukon Initiative; and
Robert Liberty, architect of Oregon’s land-use planning system.

These
speakers will share their perspectives on options for creating a future that
conserves our natural and cultural values, while also creating sustainable and
equitable communities.

This is the
second “Sustaining the New West” conference. The first focused primarily on the
impacts of growth, development and climate change on the future of the region. At
this second gathering, individuals who have been deeply engaged in these issues
in the Northern Rockies will offer alternative future scenarios. Their
presentations will be followed by people from other regions who will share
lessons they have learned while working on sustainability issues on a landscape-wide—if
not statewide—scale.

Glick said
he looks forward to the conference, guaranteeing that it will be “a thought-provoking
and provocative day that will help us to chart a course for a brighter future
for this region.”